SpeedTree Log

If you’re going to be in San Francisco next week, be sure visit to the IDV team in Booth #831 at GDC 2013 (March 27-29, Moscone Convention Center), where we’ll be debuting our new version of SpeedTree for Games. Our just-released version 6.3 includes some important new features for game developers, including: New Platform Support: […]

Several games under development for the just-revealed PlayStation®4 will feature SpeedTree® for Games, and it was announced today that the game industry’s premier vegetation middleware fully supports the platform. We’re really excited about the PS4’s system architecture. We welcomed the eight symmetric x86 cores with open arms, as I suspect most developers will. The abundant […]

As more architects turn to SpeedTree® Studio/Architect for 3D visualization, we’re sharing examples of their excellent work on our new architectural gallery and recently learned about an arch viz project where SpeedTree was used for creating over 200 precisely modeled trees . . . When Rob Meyers, the founder & 3D Experience Designer at Visual […]

Updated February 26, 2013 With the 2012 Oscars® now in the history books, it’s a good time to point out how SpeedTree® has played a part in several major productions recently recognized for excellence in visual effects. Check out the winning and nominated films/studios that have used SpeedTree to help create lifelike animated trees and vegetation […]

We’re pleased to share that fxphd, an online training school for post-production visual effects, and motion graphics, is now offering a course on several SpeedTree v6 animation products taught by the award-winning VFX supervisor at Brainstorm Digital, Eran Dinur. The course, PNT205: 3D Plants and Digital Environments, will guide participants working with SpeedTree and VFX software in […]

We know it can sometimes be difficult to model really high detail trees. There are many factors to consider, and it is more than just creating an impressive high triangle count model. In order to stay within bounds of having a reasonably modeled tree, I have come to learn and heavily depend on a few […]

It’s been well over a year since we released SpeedTree® Cinema and Studio for all three desktop platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux). However, we still occasionally run into people with the misconception that SpeedTree is just for Windows. This is no longer the case! Game development is largely conducted on Windows, so admittedly this […]

cmiVFX, which makes and markets detailed tutorials for visual effects artists around the world, has developed a 2-hour, 50-minute SpeedTree® tutorial for creating digital trees and forests. “The days of using turtle equations for the sole purpose of creating branches and leaves are all but a memory when you have access to IDV’s SpeedTree Modeler,” […]

The SpeedTree® real-time/games pipeline involves three major components: SpeedTree Modeler: This is where video game animation artists create and edit vegetation models, in real-time or cinematic resolutions. In the Games version, LODs and wind are tuned in using an animated WYSIWYG window that mirrors the run-time SDK’s behavior. SpeedTree Compiler: Takes the models saved in […]

Despite the name Speed “Tree” you may be surprised to see the creative ways that artists are using our toolkit do more than just make trees. In fact, SpeedTree can be used in conjunction with other 3D tools to model and render all kinds of crazy stuff, from Kudzu animal sculptures to headless haunted creatures […]